talk less (smile more)
by Marvelgeek42
Summary: In which Aaron Burr's advice is actually lifesaving. [Random Updates]
1. journey

**This was supposed to be a long one shot, but the event this is for ends in 20 minutes and this is the last thing seperating me and the bonus, so...**

 **Random Drabbles it is.**

 **Romance Awareness Day 8: You have a limited number of words, and you can only recharge when you're with your soulmate (when you use up your word count, you die)**

 **Word Count: 313**

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 **i. journey**

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There was one thing that every single immigrant to the North American continent agreed on: it was weird.  
As soon as you set foot onto the continent some weird markings would appear on your arm. Any local will explain to you — if you let them write it, that is — that this is your word counter. It is the number of words you can speak until you either met your soulmate and spend enough time with them to recharge or you die.

Alexander Hamilton had luckily enough overheard this before he actually set foot on the continent, because the resulting stream of questions would probably have reduced his count quite a lot, he would guess.

To say that he was a generally rather talkative person was such a gross understatement that they might as well have insulted him directly. How on earth is he supposed to rise above his station and prove his worth to the world (and himself, admittedly), if he had no chance to _talk_?

The only thing he could do was to learn to write fast and make as little mistakes as possible as to waste no time correcting them.

And so he started practising. As to not waste ink and parchment, he asked around the ship if anyone either wanted or needed him to pen a letter for the smallest fee Alexander still considered reasonable. Once that was exhausted, he turned to poems and plays that he hoped he would be able to sell once they reached the port.

The plays he tried to keep as silent as possible. That actually presented a challenge that was surprisingly fun.

He had done honestly all he could think of to prepare — he has tried and mostly failed to limit his speaking — and yet he can't help but feel woefully underprepared as the American Continent appears on the horizon.


	2. arrival

**I'm not really sure why this proved to be so hard to write, but it did.**

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 **ii. arrival**

* * *

When he reluctantly requests help with this whole 'not talking' thing — because he did not come here on a ship that caught on fire, just to die from something this stupid, alright? — he is told to ask one Aaron Burr for help, because the man has apparently perfected the art.

Alex has luckily been blessed with a number almost three times the average for his age. They tell him that that simply means that he will have the misfortune of meeting his soulmate late, but Alexander doesn't think so. After all, he knows how much talking he does. He says as much, too.

They disagree and they do it in writing, of course, because until he has this sign language thing down, everything either is or should be in writing.

He means 'everyone willing to converse with him in writing', when he says 'they', of course. Not everyone is, and Alex can think of a number of reasons for that, his continued verbal communication being one of the more obvious ones.

He's gotten horribly off track, hasn't he?

Someone suggests Alexander goes and find Aaron Burr to teach him. Alexander is familiar with him, some of the repeating customer in the trading charter back on St. Croix had mentioned his name — though for some reason no one seemed it fit to mention the abnormal aspcat of the continent. Mayhap they thought it irrelevant?

Either way, Burr is someone Alexander had actually had an interest in speaking to before, so all seems to work out in that sense. After all, the man has managed to complete Princeton University in a mere two years and with his twenty-one years — _nineteen_ , he reminds himself — he has already gotten a late start by roughly half a decade.

He needs to find this man as soon as possible if he wants to rise above is station.


End file.
